Restauranteur Dan Barber, left, and his wife Aria Beth Sloss, right, arrive at the James Beard Foundation Awards Gala on Monday, May 6, 2013, in New York.

Written by

J.M. Hirsch

Food may not have been their first calling, but coming late to the culinary scene clearly hasn't slowed David Chang and Paul Kahan.

On Monday, David Chang and Paul Kahan were jointly honored as the nation's most outstanding chefs by the James Beard Foundation, an exclamation point on circuitous careers that began in other fields - Chang in finance and Kahan in computer science - but saw them quickly ascend to the top of the restaurant world.

The foundation's top restaurant award this year went to Dan Barber's Blue Hill in New York City. Barber - who was the foundation's top chef in 2009 - follows a ...